DNS Server questions

I'd like to use the inbuilt DNS feature that ISPConfig has to be a DNS Server.. But when i point to the server, 192.168.1.98 as a DNS in my TCP/IP config, it always fails to resolve anything...

I dunnoe if that's what the DNS is meant to do in this case.

Sort of what i'm trying to do is this. This DNS Server will resolve the subdomain for my domain (I'm guessing these are what NSes are for.. still newb...)

I also want to be able to use that DNS Server from a workstation to resolve any addresses that i want to resolve including those from my domain and when it comes to those domains that i do not own, it will forward it to another external DNS server, like the ones from my ISP.

I did something like this before on a Windows platform so it's really all very fuzzy to me rite now with Linux.. Query Forwarding, Query something, Forwarding something.. something like that.. i forgot the name... heehee

I do see an answer section... for all of my domains..
and port 53 isn't blocked.. Checked it out thru the port scan ISPConfig has..

I tried putting what i believe is a catchall symbol, the @ sign as my A Name
then i put www as my CNAME and pointed it towards the A Name with the @ sign.

For my domains, it's all virtual at the moment, oni one of the domains has been purchased... For the purchased one in this LAN environment, anything other than www.domain.tld or domain.tld will somehow point back to the real, external IP where the real domain points to...

What happened to the catchall symbol?

For the other unpurchased domains, only unpurchaseddomain.tld points my browser to the webhost regardless of wat i put in the ISPConfig's DNS Management thingy.. www.unpurchaseddomain.tld does not work.